


Written Out in Breath and Blood

by nessundorma345 (wastrelwoods)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Master of Death is such a good term, most likely TBC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:00:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/nessundorma345
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The largest secret Tony and Loki keep is a common one: they both /care/.</p><p>Also, an experiment is conducted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written Out in Breath and Blood

There's a list. 

Not written down, never officially, because the moment he writes it down he won't be the only one who knows, and the list never stops shifting, and it's so perfectly obvious to him that it just seems ridiculous to think about writing it out. But still, there's a list. A list of people you don't fuck with, on pain of death. A list of the people that Tony would kill for, or die for, or both at once. The way he always thinks about it, he calls it 'me and my own', but really, it's just his own. Because Tony, he's a big boy, he can handle himself if someone fucks with him. Less so if someone straight-up fucks him, but then we all have our little faults, don't we? 

The thing about this list is, it's short. Its surprising, actually, that there's even a list, because who ever heard of a Stark who cared enough to protect his own when his own wasn't just power, prestige, and money? At any one time there are maybe five people on it, and none of them know about it, or would even begin to approve of it. The list started the first time Tony found something worth killing for, dying for; sometime after his worldview changed drastically with the added bonus of a hole to the chest and sometime a bit before he accepted the part of him that wanted to kill and die for Pepper Potts. 

He made it, actually, while dangling in midair above the arc reactor and screaming at his PA-cum-life-runner to blow it all up. It's a habit of his, making these kinds of lists at these kinds of inopportune times. 

Example: Head held under water. The bubbles escape at a frantic rate, rushing past his ears. His eyes burn, his throat constricts. The room smells like blood, it clings to him even beneath the surface of the filthy, tepid water. He closes his eyes, screaming a scream lost in bubbles.

_List 73: Ten Ways to Pay The Bastards Back_

_One - bring down the roof around all of our heads, and relish the looks of surprise on their faces_

_Two - burn them_

_Three - both at once. But build a suit of armor, get out, and become their worst nightmare_

It ends up being much longer than ten. He never does get around to writing that list down, either.

But the fact remains that he would kill for Pepper. And he does, more times than she would ever really want to know. And he would die for her: he almost does that too. 

_List 206: If Anyone Fucks With Any of These People, I Will do to Them What I Did to the Ten Rings_

_One - Pepper Potts_

_Two - Happy_

_Three - Rhodey_

_Four - Pepper Potts_

_Five - Agent (because he's one of Pepper's)_

What doesn't happen, for so much longer than anticipated-- because Tony, he's one of the good guys, he protects his own, is that no one touches them. And especially not Pepper, because she literally  runs his life and at least seventy-five percent runs his heart and he will rip the first person to look at her the wrong way apart with his bare hands. What does happen, though, is what always happens to those who err on the side of Murphy's Law: someone fucks with Agent. 

And this is an issue, because this, this is like nothing Tony has ever seen before, this is Loki, Loki who blatantly explodes on the scene and smiles his poison smile and breaks every rule in the book, and several that hadn't been written down yet. Like this one, for example: _Anyone who touches the people listed on list 206 will die a slow, painful, and merciless death. I will then find a way to bring the trespasser back to life in order to have the pleasure of killing them again in an even slower and more painful fashion._

This is what happens to Loki when he takes a match to Tony's list and a spear to Agent's vital organs: Tony offers him a drink. Because Loki, he's different, he was made to fuck with Tony and his own, to reach inside the heads of everyone he meets and unmake and remake, and Tony, he finds it so fascinating. He can't help it, never could. Like he said before, we all have our own little faults. Curiosity killed the nosy mortal billionaire, as they say.

_List 273: Reasons why I am intrigued by Lean, Mean and Green_

_One - He's smarter than your average supervillain, by which I mean he can dance circles around Doom. It's probably the magic._

_Two - How the actual fuck does magic work?_

_Three - Magic can't actually exist, though. I mean, can it?_

_Four - Thor tells some great stories when he's drunk, okay? I mean, it takes a brewery and a half to get him that way, but_

_Five - I'd tap that_

_Six - What if I did, though? I mean, can you imagine the looks on everyone's fac--_

_Who am I kidding. Probably no one would be surprised. Except Steve._

_Seven - I'm seventy-three percent sure that he doesn't actually want me dead, or I would be pushing daisies right now._

_Eight - What happened in Chicago. Now, I'm pretty sure he DID want me dead then, but that's not the point._

_Nine - He's on list 206, and I don't know why._

Probably the first clue should have been the ridiculous length of that list. And really, Tony knows it only says one thing. (We are two sides of the same coin, Loki and I, and half the time I can't figure out if heads or tails is the right side to be on. It's hard when you only ever back your own side, but I think that's a thing that he does, too.)

That's why he's on list 206, really. The List. Because if someone kills him before Tony gets to find out what it would be like if they were both on the same side, then he'll burn up in his own curiosity. 

That's all. Curiosity. 

 

If the world is a tree, she lives deep below the roots in a land so cold that everything in it is dead. She is the half-frozen queen, and her father would have been king of a land of northern ice if he was not a fallen star. Her name is Hel, but some call her Lady Death. And she has a book.

This book is known the universe over, though it is mostly blank. It is a list of people that are not allowed to die, and in the entire universe there are three people with the authority to write in it, and none who care enough about anyone in particular to write their names down. You cannot write your own name in the Book of Life. If you break every rule there has ever been, that is one rule you do not break. 

At this moment, four names are written there, and Loki Silvertongue has written all but one. And each time he writes a name, he gives something in return. Of course, of the three empowered to write in the Book, he is the one with the least moral principle and the most jealous reason to wish some measure of control over life and death.

The first is Hel, and he wrote it five hundred years ago, as a gift. Only the best for his daughter. Though she has never touched a golden apple, she will live forever; which gives Loki enough time to set her free when he brings the end of all things. Besides, an immortal can still be killed. Those with names written in the Book will outlive them all.

The name below is crossed out; it was his own, written by Odin in the days before he had cause to regret it. In return for Hel's name, he gave up his own place. Being a Master of Death gets so boring after a while, he tells himself, and what is life without a few risks?

The next is Thor, wonderful, dull, loyal Thor who would never let him go even when he bit. He doesn't talk about what he did to write Thor's name. He doesn't talk about the fact that he even wrote it in the first place. Thor doesn't know, of course, just thinks he's lucky. He would.

The last name has been there for exactly forty-eight hours, because forty-nine hours ago someone very foolish did something equally foolish and got himself pinned under a collapsed office building in Chicago with the god of Mischief. There was a little screaming,  some frenzied whispering about running out of air, quite a bit of blood, and something not unlike fainting. Five minutes after stabilizing(healing) the fool mentioned above, Loki came straight here, carved a sigil on his lower arm, and wrote a name in a Book. 

"It's an experiment," he hissed as Hel wrapped the injured limb with a sardonic smile on her twisted face, because for what kind of experiment would Father surrender his magics? Admittedly, she gave him a week at the most to find a way around it, but still. She didn't like the though of his beng vulnerable in the interim.

"This Tony Stark," she murmured. "His reaction had better be satisfactory. I have half a mind to scratch his name out. What will he say, Father, your new Master of Death?"

Loki winced, then smiled slightly. "I don't know. That's why it's an experiment."

He never does get around to telling Stark, just as he never does manage to tell him about the List.


End file.
